The Primal Urge. Brian Aldiss

Everybody looked well, cheerful and in good humour; that they were also interested in Jimmy lessened his interest in them. As if they had been waiting for a signal, they began talking about the registers; they were the topic of conversation at present. After a long burst of animation, a pause set in, during which all eyes turned on Jimmy, awaiting, as it were, a sign from the fountainhead.

      ‘As the only fox with a tail,’ he said, ‘I feel I ought not to give away any secrets.’

      ‘Has it lit up yet, that’s what I want to know?’ a commanding man in heavy glasses said, amid laughter.

      ‘Only once, so far,’ Jimmy said, ‘but I haven’t had it more than three hours.’

      More laughter, during which someone made a crushing remark about fancy dress parties, and a sandy woman said, ‘It really is appalling to think that everyone will know what we’re thinking when we have ours installed.’

      A man, evidently her husband by the laboured courtesy with which he addressed her, took her up instantly on this remark. ‘My dear Bridget, will you not remember that these Norman Lights go deeper than the thought centres. They register purely on the sensation level. They represent, in fact, the spontaneous as against the calculated. Therein lies the whole beauty of them.’

      ‘I absolutely couldn’t agree more,’ the heavy glasses said. ‘The whole notion of submitting ourselves to this process would be intolerable were it not that it gives us back a precious spontaneity, a freedom, lost for generations. It is analogous to the inconvenience of contraceptives: submit to a minor irk and you inherit a major liberty.’

      ‘But don’t you see, Merrick,’ Guy said, perching himself on tiptoe to address the heavy glasses, ‘—goodness knows how often I’ve pointed this out to people – the Norman Lights don’t solve anything. Such an infringement of personal dignity is only justifiable if it solves something.’

      ‘Personal dignity is an antique imperialist slogan, Leighton,’ a smart grey woman said, giving Guy some of his own medicine.

      ‘And what do you expect them to solve?’ Merrick of the heavy glasses asked, addressing the whole group.

      ‘Abolishing the death penalty entirely last year didn’t solve the problem of crime, any more than contraceptives have done away with bastards, but at least we are taking another step in the right direction. You must realise there are no solutions in life – life is not a Euclidean problem – only arrangements.’

      The smart grey woman laughed briefly. ‘Come, Merrick,’ she said, ‘We can’t let you get away with that; there are no “directions” in the socio-ethical meaning you attribute to right.’

      ‘Oh, yes, there are, Susan,’ Merrick contradicted imperturbably. ‘Don’t reactivate that old nihilist mousetrap. There are evolutionary directions, and in relation to them the Normal Lights are an advance. Why are they an advance? Because they enable the id for the first time to communicate direct, without the intervention of the ego. The human ego for generations has been growing swollen at the expense of the id, from which all true drives spring; now—’

      ‘Then surely these Norman Lights are causing a reversion,’ Bridget interrupted. ‘A return to the primitive—’

      ‘Not primitive: primal. You see, you’ve got to differentiate between two entirely separate but quite similar—’

      ‘I can’t help thinking Merrick’s right off the beam. However it comes wrapped, an increased subservience to the machine is something to reject out of hand. I mean, in the future—’

      ‘No, wait a moment, though, Norman Lights aren’t machines; that is to say, they aren’t instruments for the conversion of motion, but for the conversion of emotion. They’re merely registers – like a raised eyebrow.’

      ‘Well, I’m still capable of raising my own eyebrows.’

      ‘And other people’s, I hope.’

      ‘Anyhow, that’s not the point. The point is—’

      ‘Surely a return to the primitive—’

      ‘The point is, to wear them voluntarily is one thing; to have this law passed by our so-called government is quite—

      ‘And who elected this government, Susan? You, Susan.’

      ‘Don’t let’s go into all that again!’

      ‘After all, why drag evolution into this? How can a mere mechanical—’

      ‘My dear man, mechanisation is a natural step – natural, mark you – in man’s evolution. Really, some people’s world pictures are so antiquated. Darwin might as well never have sailed in the Beagle at all!’

      ‘I cannot honestly see how anyone could expect anybody—’

      ‘All I’m trying to say is—’

      ‘—in the nation’s best interests. Everyone bogged down by inhibition, and then like a clean slash of a scalpel—’

      ‘If you’ve ever observed an operation in progress, Merrick, you will know surgeons do not slash.’

      ‘—comes this glorious invention to set us free from all the accumulation of five thousand years of petty convention. Here at last is hope handed to us on a plate, and you worry—’

      ‘Last week he was attacking and I was defending.’

      It was at this point in the argument spluttering around him that Jimmy, listening in interested silence, found that a man he had heard addressed as Bertie was tipping rum into his – Jimmy’s – champagne from a pocket flask.

      ‘Give it a bit of body,’ Bertie said, winking conspiratorially and gripping Jimmy’s arm.

      ‘Thanks. No more,’ Jimmy said.

      ‘Pleasure,’ Bertie said. ‘All intellectuals here. I’m a cyberneticist myself. What are you?’

      ‘I sort of give exhibitions.’

      ‘You do? Before invited audiences? You’d better count me in on that. I tell you, when I get my red light, it’s going to wink in some funny places.’ He laughed joyously.

      ‘I’m afraid these are only book exhibitions,’ Jimmy said, adding, for safety, ‘Clean books.’

      ‘Who’s talking about books? They’re full of antique imperialist slogans,’ Guy said, butting in and making a face at Susan. ‘Don’t change the subject, Jimmy. There’s only one subject in England at the moment – it’s even ousted the weather. You, presumably, are more pro NLs than anyone else here. Why are you pro?’

      ‘For practical reasons,’ Jimmy said airily. The champagne was already making him feel a little detached from the group; they were only talkers – he was a pioneer. ‘You see, entirely through my own stupidity, Penny Tanner-Smith, my fiancée, broke off our engagement last week. I hoped that if she could see how steadily my ER glowed for her, she would agree to begin again.’

      There was much sympathetic laughter at this. Susan said, ‘What a horribly trite reason!’ But Merrick said ‘Bloody good. Excellent. That’s what I mean – cuts through formality and misunderstanding. Our friend here has inherited a major liberty: the ability to prove to his fiancée exactly how he feels about her; try and estimate what that is worth in terms of mental security. I’m going to get my Norman Light stuck on tomorrow.’

      ‘Then you disappoint me, Merrick,’ Guy Leighton said.

      ‘I cannot wait on fashion, Guy; I have an aim in life as well as a role in society,’ Merrick said amiably. It sounded as if he knew Guy fairly closely.

      Gazing beyond them, Jimmy could see Sir Richard still welcoming an occasional late arrival, his eyebrows astir with hospitality. A tall, silver man had just come in escorting a tall girl with a hatchet face who, in her survey